On Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Micke Grove Golf Links in Lodi, California, Pilots cross country laced up their running shoes, tied their hair back, stretched and competed at the 2024 WCC Cross Country Championships.
The men placed first overall with 27 points, clinching the West Coast Conference title as well as several individual awards. On the women’s side, the Pilots just lost out on a back-to-back championship, finishing second overall with 49 points behind Gonzaga who finished with 35. Both teams will now look to keep their fitness and compete at the upcoming NCAA West Regional Nov. 15 and the national championship Nov. 23.
Head coach of the men’s cross-country team Robert Conner said that they wanted to compete for the title but also get ready for the upcoming NCAA competitions.
“The emphasis was that we wanted to win the thing, and the goal for everybody was to run hard, have a good race and then move on to regionals,” said Conner.
Beating Gonzaga was also a big motivator for the team, and Conner believes it gave them an extra competitive edge.
“Last year, Gonzaga won the meet, so we had a big goal this year,” Conner said. “We really wanted to beat them and get that title back in Portland. We knew every guy was going to count [and] our first five guys all went really big times.”
Matt Strangio was the first finisher for the Pilots and placed second overall with a time of 23:12.0. He was followed closely by Jona Bodirsky, Bradley Peloquin, Jonas Gertsen and Kgadi Monyebodi, who placed fourth, fifth, seventh and ninth with times of 23:35.7, 23:36.7, 23:41.6 and 23:50.7 respectively.
Redshirt senior Matt Strangio races at the WCC D1 Cross Country Championships where he placed second overall. Photo courtesy of WCC Sports.
The top ten finishers in the race automatically receive All-WCC First Team honors, and while these are prestigious individual accolades, Conner praised the team's teamwork and unity.
“We have a very close team, a very hard-working team and a very selfless team,” Conner said. “I challenged the team going into conference. We hadn’t won the race in quite some time, so I said, ‘Hey, we need to send our seniors out with a championship,’ and the guys really responded and got that done. I’m very proud of everybody’s efforts.”
Looking ahead to the NCAA West Regional, Conner says that winning the WCC is just the first step towards their bigger goals. The Pilots are vying for a top-four spot at regionals in order to qualify for the NCAA National Championships on Saturday, Nov. 23.
“We don’t want to make the conference meet the biggest meet of the year,” Conner said. “We want to make sure we’re focused on regionals [and] we’re shooting for a trip to Nationals.”
Head coach of the women’s cross country team, Ian Solof, praised the team's running process and improvement from last year.
“I felt like the team did really well [and] I felt like we raced about as well as we were capable of,” Solof said. “I was thrilled to get second and beat Washington State and Oregon State, and I was really impressed with how our team raced.”
The changing competition in the WCC adds a new challenge for the Pilots, but Solof is happy with the overall team development since winning last year's WCC title.
“We had a total of four women finishing in the top ten, so that was really impressive to me, and I think we ran better than we did last year when we won the title…” Solof said. “[Last year] we had three runners in the top ten, and this year we had four in the top ten…That just tells you how much harder the conference was this year.”
The Pilots in the top ten were Fleur Templier, Laura Pellicoro, Maebh Richardson and Juliette Forstrom who placed second, fourth, ninth and tenth respectively to earn All-WCC First Team honors.
Solof says that Gonzaga’s new strength and the addition of Washington State and Oregon State to the WCC conference contributed to the competition's difficulty but also helped the Pilots focus solely on their team goals.
“There’s added pressure when you’re the defending champion, and that was taken away because Gonzaga [had] such a good team,” Solof said. “I think that helped us to just run hard, focus on ourselves, on being competitive and [it] allowed us to get good results…We really try to emphasize the process and not worry about the outcome.”
Solof’s focus on the team’s process is shown through Pellicoro's return at the WCC Championships.
“This was Laura Pellicoro’s first race of the season,” Solof said. “She’s been dealing with some little injury issues and so she hadn’t been able to compete yet. It’s been a challenge not having her this season and so it was great to have her not only running in the meet, but she [also] did a fantastic job. I was just so happy with the way she raced.”
The Pilots would have liked to add another trophy to their cabinet, but Solof said their ultimate goal was to race hard and keep improving to perform well at the NCAA West Regional race.
“In cross country, the conference championship is very important and then we have the regional championship which is also really important…” Solof said. “I try to take some of the pressure off in terms of what the performance is going to be, what places we’re going to get, or how fast people are going to run and focus instead on being tough, competitive and executing a good race plan.”
Pilots Cross Country fans can catch the team competing next at the NCAA West Regional Nov. 15 hosted by Washington State University.
Aidan Hyde is a sports reporter at The Beacon. He can be reached at hyde25@up.edu.
